Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies, vo1.12, nos.1 & 2 (1998)
 Book Review
 Puseletso Kidd, K. Makgekgenene, A. Molokomme, L.L. Molamu,
 I.S. Malila, G.N. Lesetedi, K. Dingake, and K. Mokongwa,
 Botswana Families & Women's Rights in a Changing Environment.
 Gaborone: The Women and Law in Southern Africa Research Trust,
 1997. 119 pp. ISBN 99912-929-QX
 Dorcas B. Mo/efe
 Molepolole College of Education
Botswana is one of the six countries in the southern African region that
forms the Women and Law in Southern Africa Research Trust (WLSA). The
five others are: Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
    In this study a WLSA research team sets out to investigate how negative
an impact have laws, societal rules, practices and attitudes on lives of women
-with a view to understanding the issues and promoting women's rights
(Kidd et al., 1997).
    Studies in all six WLSA countries on Maintenance Laws and Practices
(1990-91) and Inheritance Laws and Practices (1992-93) have had one
common finding relevant to all the nations. This is the immense power and
control that families have over their female members. Also, where individuals
compete for the same resources, the definition of family varies, giving some
people the status of family members for some purposes, but not for others
-and all too often women were the victims.
    This research project was called 'Families and Women's Rights in a
Changing Environment in Botswana' and was carried out between 1994 and
1997. It focused on 'the rights of women to access and control resources'
(Kidd et aI., 1997: I). It was conveniently divided in three phases. First, a
preliminary study of existing family forms-to understand family formations
and constitutions, relations between members, and women's role. (The
findings of this show the existence of a plurality of family forms in
Botswana, which extend, contract and shift according to situations.) The
second phase, covered women's access and control over resources, comparing
men's and women's rights in the various family forms. The third phase,
reconceptualized 'the meaning of women's rights in the Botswana context'
(Kidd et aI, 1997:3). In addition there was some enquiry into the decision-
making powers of informants relating to the production, reproduction and use
of resources-observing      the constraints faced by women.
     Having established the existence of a diversity of family forms, the study
adopted a framework of legal pluralism with a gender focus. This helped the
WLSA researchers to understand women's real life experiences, their
perceptions of family, as well as their strategies for dealing with crises. Data
collection techniques inccluded case studies (with questions about material and
                                         116


emotional support, decision-making and reproduction), interviews with
officers whose work relates to family issues, and focus group discussions.
    Studies of laws and customs lend themselves to cultural studies, and a
qualitative approach enriched with case studies is appropriate. The study
reveals how women are continually disadvantaged through policies, practices
and laws-which        hamper their economic prosperity and make them
dependent on men. The study shows how important it is to understand the
impact of the ideologies of patriarchy and capitalism on women's lives.
    WLSA recognises that the diverse family forms are not new to Botswana.
The research of Schapera at Rampedi, in Mochudi, as cited in Kidd et a\.,
(1997), showed the existence of a variety of family forms back in 1934-35:
basic nuclear family, single parentfamily, families with children from various
marriages, and three generation families-all differing in structure and size.
Schapera's studies have been an invaluable source of information on
traditional practices and customs.
    Despite diverse family forms, the state-through its policies and laws-
ignores family forms that are not male-headed and based on formal marriage.
Female-headed households have increased from 45% of the total in 1981 to
47% in 1991, and women heads are still not recognised by the Botswana legal
system. The Affiliation Proceedings Act and customary laws prove to be
irrelevant.
    This research has shown that the definition of 'family' has extended
beyond typical relations of blood and intermarriage to include neighbours and
friends-in their roles of providing emotional support and conflict resolution.
Profiles of five family forms are presented: those based on marriage, de facto
female headed families, de Jure female headed families, families of siblings,
families of co-habitants.
    Tangible resources in the Botswana context used as dependent variables in
the WLSA research were land, housing, cattle and money; while intangible
resources were divided into employment, education and health, interactions
and social relationships. These resources (with the exception of 'interactions
and social relationships') were seen by WLSA as measures and indicators of
how much women had rights as people.
    One chapter in Botswana Families & Women's Rights in a Changing
Environment reviews the laws applicable to access to and control of resources
in Botswana, and discusses access to and control of state and tribal land.
Traditional Tswana society allocated land to male heads. Under the modern
Land Act, Gulbrandssen (1984 }-cited in Kidd et al. (1997}- observed th at
male applicants for land had no difficulties obtaining it, but females were
rejected unless it was evident that they would never marry. Mathuba (1997)
adds that, despite the 'gender neutral' Tribal Land Act, in practice there was
great imbalance in land allocation.
    Far fewer women than men have acquired state land, though both have
equal legal capacity to do so. Women have also loss lost because of their lack
of legal resources. Husbands have the right to sell land without the wife's
consent; so after divorce many women are left empty handed.
                                      117


     Mathuba and Molokomme-both cited in Kidd et aI., (1997)-have            shown
 that there is a serious gap between seemingly 'gender-neutral' policies on
 paper and their implementation. The male-biased ideologies of patriarchy and
 traditionalism and to some extent capitalism continue to predominate even
 in situations which are not by legal design intended to favour males. The land
 board in Masunga insisted a married woman needs her husband's written
 consent before she can be allocated land; while the husband needed none. The
 Deeds Registry Act is a good example of how laws about property ownership
 favour men. Women married under customary law and those married in
  "community of property" have no control over family property.
     Traditionally, cattle were passed from father to son. Women got some
 degree of access to cattle ownership through a system where each child had a
 beast earmarked for them at birth-a              practice found among both
 Bangwaketse and Bangwato (Roberts and Schapera cited in Kidd et al.).
     A 1991 study on 'Women and Cattle', also cited in Kidd et aI., confirms
 that most cattle are owned by males. The Ministry of Agriculture Livestock
 and Crop Survey had found more female-headed households owned no cattle
 than male-headed households. Kayira showed that fewer women were engaged
 in cash employment than men, but in self-employment they were equal in
 proportion, and there were more unemployed women than unemployed men.
 (The latter might be attributed           to relatives levels of educational
 achievement. )
     There are slightly more females than males in Botswana: by 1988 estimate
 692 396 females and 634 400 males in a total population of I 326 796. Girls
do indeed start school in higher numbers than boys, but the girls drop out in
greater numbers before and during secondary education, mainly due to
pregnancy (Duncan, 1985). Strict re-admission policies and procedures after
pregnancy have been a severe hindrance to girls' education.
In my opinion, Botswana Families & Women's Rights in a Changing
Environment focuses too much on traditions and influences from the past.
Yet neither the study itself, nor the literature it refers to, discusses polygyny
and how women were affected by it in matters such as inheritance.
    The study fails presents women too much as a homogeneous group-other
than in the diversity of family forms. There is little recognition of factors of
social class, and how problems such as teenage pregnancy, access to
reszources including education, and the nature of unemployment, are different
for different socio-economic groups.
    Research was carried out in seven locations in Botswana, in seven different
districts. That was good, but there should have been acknowledgement of the
different subcultures in the districts, and of the differences between urban and
urban women, with in-depth studies of different cultural or ethnic groups of
women. In-depth studies of an ethnographic type are desperately needed in
communities to enrich the findings of this study .
. Bots~ana Families & Women's Rights in a Changing Environment has
msuffic~ent coverage on the 'changing environment'. More intensive review
of the hterature on contemporary issues in Botswana, and on gender research,
                                         118


 would have helped. The literature review is disappointingly thin on 'access to
 education' (one paragraph!), on 'access to health', and 'access to
 employment'      (three and four paragraphs, respectively).         It is also
 disappointing on access and control of land and cattle.
    The study could have benefited from a review of literature on women and
 education-taking     into account the findings of Duncan (1985), Kann et al.
 (1986), Kann and Mugabe (1988), Nyati-Ramahobo, et al. (I992a) and
 Nyati-Ramahobo and Mmolai (1992b). The work by Kann and Mugabe points
 out how disruption of female education affects their future employment
 opportunities, and results in the low status of women and makes women's
 dependency on others. The conventional view-see Williams, Shashane and
 Larson, as cited in Kidd et al.-attributes this to teenage pregnancies caused
 by adult men. But the system of identitying boys in school responsible for
 pregnancies is not efficient.
    These are some of the issues that WLSA should look into in future, so that
they can come up with intervention strategies on policies and laws. One
project that they might look at is the Diphalane Project and the school for
pregnancy dropouts in Mahalapye-a           commendable effort at solving the
much vaunted problem. It is a problem that not only affects female
teenagers: it also affects all their female family members, who take on the
responsibility of looking after the baby and its teenage mother. As for the
young mother, the responsibility of supporting her baby the other immediate
needs limit her long-term career options. Often the babies are brought up in
rural areas, where there are limited job opportunities. This results in the
mothers taking low income jobs, perpetuating dependence on men and low
socio-economic status, susceptible to abuse and disease.
    Ingstad and Saugestad, cited by Kann and Mugabe (1988), made a study of
unmarried women in Molepolole. They found that very few with children
born outside marriage received any support from the fathers. Hence a large
part of single women's resources goes towards maintenance of children, while
the fathers of their children often get off scot-free. The fathers are enabled
by the non-implementation of 'support and maintenance policies' to cast off
their responsibility, giving them much more chance of becoming materially
and economically viable than the mothers.
    Molokomme has also noted inconsistencies between Ministry of Health
policy guidelines and the practice of the law. The Ministry of Health does not
require parental consent for contraception being given to people under the
age of twenty, but the Common law does.
    Men occupy most of the better paying jobs, and two of the biggest
employers-the       Botswana Defence Force and the mines-actively
discriminate against women's employment. Women are largely restricted to
domestic and cleaning employment, while men have much more chance of
getting jobs as involved as drivers and machine operators in transport and
works. Differences in income are inherent in these divisions.
    Kidd and her fellow authors observe that implementation of the UN
Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 can actually exclude women. The
struggle for women's rights is full of contradictions. Refusing married women
                                       119


legal capacity to effect business transactions, to procure land, or to be in
control of family property, is a refusal to acknowledge the full human rights
of women.
    Botswana Families & Women's Rights in a Changing Environment                    has
lessons for educationists, policy makers and implementors, and practitioners
of many kinds. Its innovative use of qualitative methodology makes it
important not only to feminists but also to ethnographers, anthropologists,
sociologists and other researchers. Despite its shortcomings,                 it is an
informative and useful guide to understanding issues of gender in Botswana.
                                      References
 Duncan, Wendy A. (1986) Dropping Out: An Analysis of the Extent and Causes of
    School Dropout among Secondary Students in Botswana. A Paper Presented at a
    joint NIR/ Botswana Educational Research Association (BERA) seminar, Gaborone
 Kann, Una, G. Mookodi, and 1. Synder (1986) Gender Dimensions of Development
    Research. Gaborone: University of Botswana, NIR
 Kann, U1la,and M. Mugabe (1988) Teenage Pregnancies in Botswana: How Big is the
    Problem, and What are the Implications? Gaborone: University of Botswana, NIR.
 Nyati-Ramahobo, Lydia, A. G. Njabili, S. Mmolai, O. Selepeng- Tau, and 1. Taole,
     (1992a) Girl Child Study: Opportunities and Disparities in Education (I) Gaborone:
     Botswana Educational Research Association (BERA) and UNICEF, FEMNETand
     ERNESA.
 Nyati-Rarnahobo, Lydia, and S. Mmolai, (1992b) Girl Child Study: Opportunities and
     Disparities in Education (ll) Gaborone: Botswana Educational Research Association
     (BERA) and UNICEF, FEMNETand ERNESA.
 Kidd, Puseletso, K. Makgekgenene, A. Molokomme, L. L. Molamu, I. S. Malila, G N.
     Lesetedi, K. Dingake and K. Mokongwa (1997) Botswana Families & Women's
     Rights in a Changing Environment. Gaborone: Women and Law in Southern Africa
     Research Trust, Botswana.
                                            120